


"I didn’t come this far to only come this far."

by Likorys



Series: Tumblr snippets [8]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Gen, Jaskier is derpessed and makes a dumb decision, also Why We Don't Folow Wannabe Kidnapper as told by a dumb bard, because I'm not sure if I'll write more, but i might, then asnwer is 'because it ever ends well', there be death and Jaskier not being quote human by the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-02
Updated: 2020-03-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:07:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22989064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Likorys/pseuds/Likorys
Summary: Jaskier is just a silly little bard. When wannabe kidnappers make an effort to try and lure him away quietly, after being so incessantly curious about no-longer-his- witcher, Jaskier gets curious himself. As old saying goes, the curiosity killed the cat. Satisfaction brought it back, but at what cost?Jaskier always knew he'd be the worst witcher and he might just get a proof in the writing.
Series: Tumblr snippets [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1651510
Comments: 7
Kudos: 50





	"I didn’t come this far to only come this far."

Jaskier truly belied Geralt when he told him in scraps of sentences over the years that _no more Witcher be made_ , that Kaer Morhen is a ruin, that other school fare no better, that books were burned and potions destroyed. Legacy destroyed in a flash, all because humans made children into beasts to protect their cowardly asses from the monsters, but when monsters were gone, the same humans became fearful of claws and fangs that protected them and decided to _cull the breed_ , so to speak.

Jaskier also knows mankind good enough to know that while making Witchers _like Geralt_ might be impossible today, the perfected protectors of the defenseless masses that so often turn out to be ones to be protected _from_ , it would be childish to assume nobody ever _tried_ , and Jaskier abandoned childish illusions the day of his first caning (he was ten and it was _the only time_ he allowed it to happen, learning to lie and then to lie _properly_ , lie in a way that nobody would ever question).

So, when enough time passes from that damn mountain that he is sober more often than not, he’s not stupid enough to not _recognize the questioning_ for what it was. It was decently hidden under the guise of being _so fascinated_ by his _songs_ and the _witcher_ , two men even had a pretty girl with them to sell the whole thing with little gasps and a hand stifling screams.

_Did he really kill the basilisk, wouldn’t it turn you to stone?_

_So he truly sees in the darkest night, that’s how he found it!_

_Unaffected by poison, that must come in handy…_

On and on, buying him beers he kept sloshing around as he animated his tales, glad he spent so many nights trying to keep up with witcher’s stamina that he got a head stronger than most people and _definitely_ stronger than you’d suspect from a bard; throwing question after question, some empty ones to keep his stories going and then the seemingly pointless ones.

_How did he swim in winter lake, wouldn’t he freeze before finding anything?_

_Potions, you say, wonder what monster like that would even need to take!_

_Heard about that- Striga! Heard it killed dozens before him!_

Jaskier learned to lie with his mouth first, then with his body, and then with clothes. No _silly bard_ knows what’s he getting into, clinging to the pretty lady and _too drunk_ to see her rolling her eyes at his _clumsy_ grabs at her breasts. No _silly bard_ notes the horses being much to nice for merchants or feels out the vial hidden in the deep cleavage, not one in such bright silks and feathered hat and too drunk to keep up on his feet, right?

The next day, at the castle of the little lordling, Peter, who’s behind it all, they’re _honest enough_ , Jaskier supposes. Brat lost a family to a nest of werewolves, no witcher agreed to work solely as his personal guard, so now he desired to make his own.

He has enough coins to keep a mage on his payroll and enough dungeons and slaves that he can experiment on. Jaskier makes sure to give him all the seemingly juiciest information - about the eyes that see perfectly in the darkest night, about elements bending to the witcher’s will, about healing so quickly no human man could wound them fast enough. No word of how to _obtain_ any of that, of course, he would never betray Geralt like that _even if he knew._

And they can’t get into his head, because nothing can, Geralt saw to that - Jaskier’s not sure what he did, he only remembers _another_ bruxa luring him to a room and almost draining him, pain and darkness, then Geralt pouring something absolutely foul into his mouth and _then even more pain_ , the burning in his head as if there was steel bend and nailed to his brain.

Nothing could get into his ever since (and he does so relish in the way it makes Yennefer furious). It made for a few close calls before he learned to let himself be lured but this time _with_ alerting Geralt to the fact. Much better than showing he recognized siren or whatever they were hunting for what they were and getting almost killed to keep quiet.

So poor little Peter is very disappointed and Jaskier is starting to feel disappointed too. Then the mage comes in, a withered man with greying hair, with his gloves hiding deformities that paid for unsavory magic and smelling of something tart and sour and spoiled, but _a stupid little bard_ wouldn’t feel the difference by a simple handshake and wouldn’t know he’s smelling potent herbs hiding even more potent stench of unnatural defilement, so Jaskier says nothing.

It pays off because the mage, Ebanor, seems more than glad to keep him by his side to just look over his experiments. Jaskier’s ashamed he didn’t think of this – felt safe because all he was telling was what any past client of Geralt would’ve told – but now he was _told to watch_ slaves forces to drink strange concoctions and _to estimate_ if they’re eyes are the right color, to observe those deemed _good enough_ fumble trough signs that do nothing or do _too much_ and tell if the moves are right.

It starts to feel just a little bit too much like betrayal and he hates himself for not being able to stop (the words from the mountain echoing in his head and anger burning bright). He didn’t have a _plan_ when he let them lure him here, not exactly, but after heartbreak and beer and everything that happened, he let himself-

 _Wonder_ , that’s what he’ll call it. Wonder about all the times he almost got himself killed, all the times he made the situation worse for Geralt, all the times when he was just a burden.

He’s got _a spine_ , thank you very much. He knows his songs changed Geralt’s life _for the better,_ that it’s been months since anyone called him The Butcher, that with him at his side it’s less likely they’ll be driven out of an inn, that Geralt probably had more baths and slept in more beds during their shared times than in the rest of his damned life! He knows he didn’t serve the bloody temper tantrum thrown at him, but still-

 _He wonders_. If it would’ve happened if he wasn’t so helpless and useless and weak and easy to hurt, to kill, _too_ soft and _too_ fragile and _too_ hu-

Well, maybe not _if he wasn’t too human_ , but just a tiny bit more like the witcher. If he could take a cut or a stab without needing weeks to recover, if he could stand the many potions instead of sleeping trough half a month when he took a small whiff, if he wasn’t bested by a simple snowstorm that left him with winter fever and coughing blood. If he didn’t already get more and more tired with day-long treks, if he didn’t see more crow’s feet and small wrinkles every season no matter how he drowns himself in oils and ointments, if he didn’t-

It’s probably just his old anxiety coming back – of never being proper enough, never being good enough, not for his parents, not for his professors, not for his lovers, not for people he sings for, not for Countess the Stael, _not for anyone_ and now not even for Geralt. He _knows it_ when he’s logical, but when he isn’t and wonders and lets himself remember all the times he was more trouble than he’s worth…

He’d never consciously plan to find himself a way to become a witcher, even if it was still possible. He has no heart for it – he’s too soft to kill when necessary and yet too emotional to spare when his heart is overtaken by something. He kept at the mages side for half a year, that should say everything, right?

So he stays, in weird, hopeful and weary limbo, making sure the Peter doesn’t get anything substantial, but also never really doing anything to truly stop them. It wouldn’t help anyone, he knows it, freeing one slave only would mean another taking their place, but the guilt still seeps into his bones.

Because he can’t make the world perfect, but he could’ve done _something_. Like setting fire to mage’s notes because the paranoid bastard keeps everything in one messy fire-hazard of a room.

Jaskier should’ve set fire to it and run, that would’ve been the proper thing. Geralt probably would’ve done exactly done.

Another proof he’s better of as a weak human, probably.

* * *

Of course, then came the point when it all crashed and burned worse than Cintra. Jaskier was terrified, _hoping against hope_ that Geralt got his head far enough out of his ass to go for the Child Surprise and at the same time _praying_ he kept as far away from the war as possible. He was distracted enough to never notice the drug in his food, but in his defense, Peter and his merry band of useless idiots never tried again after that first day in the inn, so he got lulled into a false sense of security. He also had no idea about _demeritium_ or that it would _affect him_.

Apparently, it took only _one week_ to plunder the till smoking remains of Cintran castle and for Ebanor to buy scraps of books about witcher-making that were supposedly lost forever. It’s _scraps_ and even Jaskier can see it, but with his experiments, it’s **enough**.

It’s enough to make every slave he tried new formula on lose their minds.

It turns out, whatever protects Jaskier’s mind is good enough to let him survive.

Sometimes, looking at his eyes sparkling like lightning bolts and demeritium collar on his bloodied and scarred neck, he’s not sure if he actually did. It might as well be a fever dream, for all that he wishes to wake up in _any other reality_ than his cage in the dungeon and another round of testing what he can do.

Ebanor still got only scraps, halves of recipes with no idea what they will do, in a language he can barely translate, full of ingredients he had no chance of acquiring. It’s a bitter irony that it’s the adjusting from the last months, from _two years_ Jaskier spent here that helps him make a working formula at all.

So he deserves what he got, probably. 

Still hates the way everything smells _too much_ and how it takes _so little_ to let him heal up yet _so long_ to faint from blood-loss.

He hates how trying to half-ass the signs ended with servants frozen into statues that shattered when they hit the ground. Ebanor lost a hand the same way, but the bastard found a way to heal it so it doesn’t really count.

He tries not to listen to mage’s explanations, because he doesn’t want to understand any of this. He wants to escape and pretend those months never happened, but his mind won’t ever quiet, as if the ice he can spread around him comes from a storm that rages in his mind.

Some days he’s almost convinced his mind wasn’t protected at all and just broke in another way.

He cannot stop thinking, he passed counting all the songs he knows by couple hundreds, he has almost as many new ones, but sometimes it’s not enough to busy himself with his own words, so he latches onto mage’s voice even when he tries his damnedest not to.

Ebanor seems to take some sick satisfaction from it, so he keeps on talking, explaining that now he can smell emotions and using every herb and potion under the sun to simulate them on slaves so he can force Jaskier to categorize then; explains how it’s obvious that since the _fire_ bend to witcher’s will, then other elements must too and praising Jaskier for how much natural talent he has, bringing air and water together into icy blasts, even if he seems unable to use any other magic; prattles on and on how his newest line of test is going on and what he changed in the formula.

* * *

Jaskier hates every single prise from the heartless bastard and fuels all of that hate into _lies_. He does everything, listens to every word and obeys every command, does things he thinks he’ll never repay for even if he gets to live centuries, all just to get his chance at revenge.

It’s almost _stupid_ , when it actually happens. The demeritium collar gets taken off only when he’s fed a potion of the damn poison, weakening him enough to be easily overpowered, but not so much he won’t be able to perform a nice test or two or until Ebanor got enough info and Jaskier can’t get up from his own bloody vomit anymore-

The mage loves to test his ice and Jaskier hates that this is what works for him, that he couldn’t get fire and squirrel a little spark into a good, hidden place to turn this whole castle into an inferno with enough time. No, all he gets is sucking the water from the air and all things alive and freezing it in moments, turning people and animals into statues that _shatter like glass_ and yes still shine with every beam of the sun-

Ice is useless as an attack, but he remembers winter from his childhood and leaving a glass bottle full of water by his window. It broke with a bang when it froze over, water seemingly expanding just from cold.

Demeritium is enough of a pacifier that the collar is just a simple lock, thank whoever still watches the tragedy of his life and decided to grant him the smallest mercy. Simple enough that when Ebanor picks up a new kind of test, Jaskier can fake his exhaustion just enough to keep the barest trace of energy when he’s given the collar to put on again.

It’s enough to keep the collar a little wider, turn the key into the empty lock, ice holing it close hidden in his hair left to grow out for three of four years at this point.

It’s enough to spend just one night without the blasted thing to give him enough energy to freeze the guards when they come in the morning.

He’s still a bard, so he gives into theatrics and spends the most of his energy on freezing the whole castle over, glass-clear walls thick as a house in a perfect circle all around, as high as he can go. It hurts to breathe after that, air dry and sharp and cutting into his throat.

He thinks it will at least help the fire, if he can find Ebanor’s blasted library already! Bastard must’ve gotten even more paranoid if he moves it around, and how could he never notice it before? His stupid, overactive brain reminds him exactly how often mage went to different corridors with his newest notes, how could he have been so stupid?!

He’s losing time he _doesn’t have_. He’s lost count how many guards he froze over – lost count of the experiments already, so it makes no difference – before the mage gets to him. He expected some battle, something fierce that would’ve killed them both so all would be well in the world after the ice melts, but _no_.

The mage was _in awe_ and praises his progress and Jaskier loses control. He lets out a scream that shatters glass in the windows and he feels as if _something in him broke_ – when he opens his eyes again, Ebanor is in the middle of the room, blood-red spiked sprouting from all over his pale, shrivelled body and crashing into walls, some cutting Jaskier’s clothes but stopping before they could harm him.

He falls to his knees and vomits and reminds himself in a hysterical loop that _of course **blood** would be water_ and _at least **he** never discovered it_ and _he deserved **worse**_.

He laughs through tears that leave his eyes burning until he cannot breathe between the dry-heaving. He moves to the wall and stays there for a moment - he tries to remember everything he did here, from getting lured in because he felt too weak to be worthy of witcher’s company and made stupid fantasies about becoming something more. About all the people breaking like glass that paid for it.

He tries to gather the same hate he felt for Ebanor and turn it onto himself, for he deserves no better than the mage, but he can’t. 

Stray thought of _Geralt hearing about this_ hits him like an ocean because the poor idiot would probably _blame himself_ or something just as noble and senseless, and he cannot allow it to happen.

So he makes himself stand, holding onto one of the crimson spikes when the world sways around him. His hands come back stained with red and he smiles bitterly. Proof of it all, far too late and not enough.

That’s what hated about his _power_ first. How distant and controlled it was, as cold as the ice itself, killing safely far away from him, far enough he won’t be harmed, far enough he doesn't actually get his hands dirty no matter many lives he shatters.

He holds onto the wall and doesn’t look for the library anymore. He finds the first room with a fireplace and starts the fire, then feed the curtains and bed-sheets into the flames before spreading them through the room and corridor full of ancestral tapestries and portraits. He finds a bottle of some alcohol and feeds the fire until it spreads around.

He collapses by a painting of a family. A couple, older man by their side, three kids. All blond and pretty and smiling and regal in the finest clothes. One of them must be Peter and Jaskier _wonders_ for a moment when does it all get so fucked up.

When does a boy lose _his family_ to a monster and _himself_ to fear?

When does mage lose his mind to power and corruption?

World sways again, air getting ticker with smoke and Jaskier sways too, hissing when his head hits the ground.

When does a bard lose his heart for a witcher and his head for a stupid fantasy of being enough for him?

He wonders if he could’ve predicted it. Maybe Geralt did – Yennefer seemed to bring out all the ugly in Jaskier and maybe he _saw enough_ , maybe that’s why he cut him off.

For all the _ruin_ it brought…

Air is cutting at his throat again and Jaskier curls onto himself when a coughing fit pushed him into another dry-heaving fit, spit and bile dripping from his lips. He’s gasping when it’s finally over and the air stinks of smoke and he’s not sure if it’s already black around or if he can’t open his eyes.

He hopes he’ll die with the fire and rasps a short, choked laugh at the irony.

He wonders if anyone will know what really happened.

He prays to whatever might still listen Geralt never will.

_Jaskier would be **no good** as a witcher, his heart is wrong, he’d kill too easily or too late._

_Geralt’s **too good** for one, his heart never hardened like it should’ve to protect him, he blames himself for too much._

Jaskier’s the last one who deserves to have his wishes granted, but he hopes he won’t add to the weight of the world that Geralt already bears on his shoulders.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspire by fanart by @lankygeralt, whose art is amazing and to be seen here https://lankygeralt.tumblr.com/post/190547204406
> 
> I'm not sure if I'll continue it, but I might.


End file.
